This document summarizes research on animal communication abilities. It discusses operant conditioning experiments using animals like Clever Hans the horse. It describes sign language research with gorillas like Koko and chimpanzees like Washoe, Nim and Viki. While these animals learned some signs and gestures, the research concluded they did not truly use or understand language. The document also discusses the FOXP2 gene, which is important for human speech and language development but differs from chimpanzee genes. In the end, it determines that while animals have cognitive abilities, they cannot learn or use language in the same way as humans.

1. On Talking Animals
Adel Rahimi

2. Table of
Contents
§ What is conditioning?
§ Clever Hans
§ Batyr the genius elephant
§ Animal Sign Language
§ Case of Washoe, Koko,Viki and Nim
§ Genetics
§ More Genetics
§ The end.

3. Operant
Conditioning
§ When an animal learns (conditioned) and behaves
(operates) in the environment
§ Skinner Box; A cage setup that an animal can live in and
gets rewards if it makes particular kind of response1.
1 http://www.sparknotes.com/psychology/psych101/learning/section2.rhtml

4. Clever Hans
§ A horse that claimed to be able to do arithmetic and
other intellectual tasks1
§ Psychologist Pfungst discovered that the horse was
paying attention to the hidden clues from the trainer2
1
http://www.sparknotes.com/psychology/psych101/learning/sec
tion2.rhtml
2 http://www.gutenberg.org/files/33936/33936-h/33936-
h.htm#CHAPTER_IV

5. Batyr
§ An elephant who claimed to be able to talk, use human
speech1
§ "Батыр плохой" — Bad Batyr — rarely;
§ "Иди́" — Go;
§ "Иди (на) хуй" — Go to hell — obscene Russian phrase;
said first and only time during a telecast shooting;
§ "Ба́-ба" — short form of "babushka" — grandmother;
short children's sound "ba”
1 Sieveking, Paul. "Conversing cows and eloquent elephants". fortunecity.com

6. Numerous other animals that claimed to be able to speak or use language in any shape or
form but that wasn’t true.
• Hoover (seal)
• Batyr (elephant)
• Kanzi (bonobo)

7. The Era of Animal Sign
Language

8. Koko
§ Gorilla that learned modified version of American Sign
Language AKA Gorilla Sign Language1
§ Learnt more than 1000 signs2 & 3
§ 2000 words of spoken English
§ She didn’t use grammar, syntax and her language was
like those of child humans
§ It was raised that she was an example of Operant
Conditioning or a case of Clever Hans
§ It was reported that koko used displacement, meta
language and jokes
§ Invented the sign for ring => finger-bracelet
§ Had a kitten pet4
1 "Koko's Birthday Gallery Blog". koko.org. The Gorilla Foundation.
Retrieved September 8, 2012.
2 Fischer, Steven R. (1999). A History of Language. Reaktion Books.
pp. 26–28. ISBN 1-86189-080-X.
3 Wise, Steven M. (2003). Drawing the Line: Science and the Case for
Animal Rights. Basic Books. p. 216. ISBN 0-7382-0810-8.
4 McGraw, C. (1985, January 10). "Gorilla's Pets: Koko Mourns Kitten's
Death". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved December 12, 2012.

9. Koko and Smoky

10. Chimps are ideal
candidates for this study
But why chimps?

11. 98.7% of the DNA of
humans and chimps is
identical1
Mary-Claire King (1973) Protein
polymorphisms in chimpanzee and human
evolution, Doctoral dissertation,
University of California, Berkeley.

13. Viki

14. Viki
§ Chimpanzee adopted by humans1 & 2 & 3
§ Learnt to talk by her lips being moved2 & 1
§ Learnt to say ‘mamma’ and some other words
§ Died of meningitis at the age of 73
1 Catherine Hayes (1951), The Ape in Our House. New York:
Harper
2 K.J. Hayes and C Hayes, C (1952). "Imitation in a home-
raised chimpanzee". Journal of Comparative and Physiological
Psychology, 45, 450-459.
3 K.J. Hayes and C.H. Nissen. (1971). "Higher mental functions
of a home-raised chimpanzee". In Schrier, A.M. and Stollnitz,
F. (eds). Behaviour of Non-human Primates, 4,50-115. New
York, Academic Press.

15. Washoe

16. Washoe
§ Was raised in an environment as close as a human’s1
§ Washoe learnt 350 Signs1
§ They stopped giving her rewards and tickle rewards2
§ She even taught her friends,
§ Moja, her friend, didn’t know the word for thermos so she
used METAL CUP DRINK
§ She showed signs of emotions
§ Quotes:
§ "You, Me out go". 'OK but first clothes' (Washoe puts on
jacket.)
§ “What That' "Shoe" 'Whose That Shoe' "Yours" 'What color'
"Black".1 Johnson, Lawrence E. (1993). A morally deep world: an essay on
moral significance and environmental ethics. Cambridge
University Press. p. 27. ISBN 978-0-521-44706-5.
2 Gardner, R. A. & Gardner, B. T. (1998). The structure of learning
from sign stimuli to sign language. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

17. Nim,
Nim Chimpsky

18. Nim
§ His name was a pun on Noam Chomsky
§ Nim learnt 125 signs but he did not use proper
grammar1
§ Terrace and colleagues finally concluded that Nim did
not use any thoughts or ideas
§ Probably, it was nothing more than Clever Hans effect2
1 Terrace, Herbert; Petitto, L. A.; Sanders, R. J.; Bever, T. G.
(November 23, 1979). "Can an ape create a
sentence" (PDF). Science. 206 (4421): 891-
902. doi:10.1126/science.504995. PMID 504995. However
objective analysis of our data, as well as those obtained by
other studies, yielded no evidence of an ape's ability to use a
grammar.
2 Radick, Gregory (2007). The Simian Tongue: The Long
Debate about Animal Language. University of Chicago Press.
p. 320.

19. Chantek

20. Chantek
in Malay: Lovely
died in 20171
§ He was raised like a human baby2
§ He had self-awareness (groomed himself in front of
mirror)
§ He knew 150 ASL signs
§ He enjoyed doing arts like painting, making necklaces
1 "Chantek, the orangutan who used sign language, dies
at 39". BBC News. 7 August 2017. Retrieved 8 August2017.
2 H. Tuttle, Russell (7 February 2014). Apes and Human
Evolution. Harvard University Press. p. 555. ISBN 978-
0674073166. Retrieved 8 August 2017.

22. What happened?
FOXP2

24. FOXP2
§ Forkhead box protein P2 or FOXP2 is a protein that is
encoded by FOXP2 gene.
§ It is required for human speech and language
development
§ two amino acid substitutions distinguish the human
FOXP2 protein from the ones found in chimpanzees
§ Evidence from genetically modified mice shows that
change in FOXP2 can affect the neural function of brain

25. FOXP2
§ Transcription Factor: it controls the activity of other
genes
§ FOXP2 is active before and after birth1
§ KE Family being affected results in impaired movement
of mouth, lips and tongue
§ Human Ape: A documentary about KE family
1 https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/gene/FOXP2

27. What’s Next?

28. Conclusion
§ Animals can’t learn what we know of language
§ Humans won’t be able to learn language without FOXP2
§ Animals have a certain level of cognitive ability but not
like humans